


That Promethean heat

by a_la_grecque



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 01:35:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13136394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_la_grecque/pseuds/a_la_grecque
Summary: Minor canon divergence - how might things have gone if Agnieszka had been able to make up her mind what she wanted when she and the Dragon start working on combining their magic and she begins to realise her feelings for him.





	That Promethean heat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laura47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laura47/gifts).



> I hope this treat goes some way to filling your request for more magic sex!

Their spell falls apart but she kisses him, feels her power over him and kisses him again, he’s lying undone beneath her. She has a moment of indecision but she kisses him again, daring him to touch her more, daring herself to brave his outrage if he won’t oblige her. He groans, and she still can’t tell how much he really wants it but he’s doing it anyway. His hands are almost painful on her hips, pulling her into him, and he reaches between her legs to push her skirts aside with so much skill that he avoids touching anywhere that might have her gasping.

And then he’s there, thorn-sharp inside her and in all her whispered conversations with Kasia they’d never imagined anything quite like this.She has her own moment of indecision, the shock of realising she’s actually doing this, they’re actually doing this. Then it doesn’t matter if he’s still reluctant because she knows she will find her way around that. Just a tiny obstacle for her magic to smooth over, she sees the true desire in his eyes as well. She rocks back on her heels and feels for the right syllables, rolling them over her tongue until she finds the ones that taste sweet together.

“Fulmia,” she whispers, the sounds sighing out of her softer than swansdown.

The Dragon’s eyes snap open, hard with fear and her mouth turns up at the corners as she remembers how anxious he was at just the word on a page of Jaga’s book. Or perhaps it’s what she’s told him of the feeling in the Wood, how the anger and the magic had poured right through her. She couldn’t begin to explain to him how different it is now, to lock her feelings up in the precise words he needs to understand the world. She has conviction now, of an entirely different sort.  
There’s just a rightness to it, and she knows it’s perfectly safe because the soles of her feet are touching the sky, nothing more. The magic’s building within her, pooling in her belly and the palms of her hands, she wants to push it into him like he’s pushing into her, the spell falls from her lips as easy as breathing. She builds a rhythm from the slap of her thighs on his, from her speeding heartbeat. She’s not even counting but she knows when the spell is worked, even though the only thing shaking is her as the magic floods out of her and she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry with the sweetness of it.

The Dragon underneath her is as rigid as if he’s been stone-spelled, but there’s barely a trace of fear left in his face and his eyes are dark and liquid with desire. His hands come back around her waist and she feels his magic too, like he can’t restrain it anymore and it’s sparking into her skin and filling her with smoke, like his fingertips will leave glowing trails wherever he’s touched her.

He lifts his head up and gently catches the rosy bud of her left nipple in his teeth, his tongue sends flames licking down her body and then he slides one of his hands between her legs and into her slick wetness, probing out the place where they join together. His touch is featherlight and she senses he just means to tease her, showing off his skill again, but she surrenders completely to his touch and lets him ignite a flame inside her, smelling roses in the air.

She’s crying out, not words this time, not a hint of a spell but she knows if they tried to build a spell again they’d be unstoppable now, between them they could have the shelves, the tables, and even the stones of the tower bursting into bloom. For half a heartbeat she wants to do just that, surround them both with roses that will keep them locked in this moment forever.

And then the moment’s over and their magic’s unspooling between her thighs, the Dragon’s slipping out and away from her, the hard planes of his body that felt so comfortable beneath her seconds ago are all painful angles again and the buckles of his jerkin that they never managed to fully remove are digging into her skin. Suddenly she’s all too conscious of the snarls in her hair and the remnants of her skirts still tangled around her thighs.

She looks down and sees for the first time the blood that’s trickled down and dried there, realises that it’s on him too, smeared across his belly. She flinches back and as if that’s all it takes to release him, the Dragon gets back to his feet in one impossibly quick movement. He’s muttering casual cantrips half under his breath, spells to clean and cleanse that she can’t even begin to imagine, turning his back to relace his shirt and fix his jerkin as easily as if nothing happened at all.

“You really are intolerable sometimes,’ he whispers, half over his shoulder.

“I didn’t- I don’t-” It’s all she can do slur out a hasty vanastalem that sends homespun rustling gently down to her ankles before she takes off. She runs, blinded by tears, trusting her feet to take her back to her room, back to Kasia with her clumsy stitches and her clumsy comfort as she tries to understand what Nieshka can’t explain to herself yet. Kasia brings her only warm water and kind words to cleanse her, then locks her in an awkward embrace, just what’s needed when she can still feel loose threads of her magic snagging in the air around her. When Kasia holds her she’s got a hard body pressed against her again, but it feels so different as she tries to untangle her feelings. ‘No, he did’ and ‘Yes, he didn’t’ aren’t adequate explanations at all, and as she looks at Kasia’s impassive face she wonders again how the two of them could have imagined everything so wrong.


End file.
